If it's any sign of how difficult it is to win the Chase, Clint Bowyer, third in points coming into Sunday's Sprint Cup AAA Texas 500, finished sixth and fell farther behind both of the drivers before him.

Bowyer dropped 10 points to leader Jimmie Johnson, now trailing by 36 with two races remaining. Second-place Brad Keselowski is 29 before Bowyer.

“You keep having these top-10s and flirting with top-fives week-in and week-out, and unless you're winning these races every week, you can't gain points,” Bowyer said. “Even if we were winning right now, it ain't enough to run them down for a championship.”

PATRICK LOGS BEST CUP FINISH

For the first time in her brief Sprint Cup career, Danica Patrick finished a race still on the lead lap.

In her previous eight Cup races this season, she had not finished better than two laps off the lead, and her highest finishing position was 25th, a mark she bested by one Sunday.

BUSCH BROTHERS STRONG

Brothers Kyle and Kurt Busch were the only non-Chase racers to finish in the top 10, with Kyle coming in third and Kurt eighth in his fourth race with his new team, Furniture Row Racing.

The eighth-place finish matches Kurt Busch's best in this tumultuous season that included a midyear team change from Phoenix Racing to Furniture Row.

“It's cool to see Kurt developing with a new team and getting that chemistry going quite quickly in order to get himself better acclimated for 2013,” Kyle said.

LONG GREEN, SHORT GREEN

Sunday's race went nearly 100 laps before the first caution of the day, but also had one of the shortest green-flag runs you'll ever see.

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A lifelong resident of the Oklahoma City metro area, Scott Wright has been on The Oklahoman staff since 2005, covering a little bit of everything on the state's sports scene. He has been a beat writer for football and basketball at Oklahoma and...